'You may be right,' I answered brightly. 'He was singing something about a girl he'd met once who let him play with her ring-dang-doo.'
'That was me,' she said tersely.
We decided together to keep him longer in Jerusalem for at least one more crack at him, but the day that followed was even more of a trial. We made a propitious beginning when he awoke with a hangover in the dazed state of an amnesiac.
'Oh, boy, I must have been terrible.' He made a sheepish and grinning apology to me. 'I can't remember a thing I did last night, not a single thing.'
At once my hopes soared. 'You remember nothing?'
'That's right, nothing at all,' Uriah the Hittite assured me. 'I can't remember a single thing that happened to me last night, not a single thing, once I made up my mind to lie down on the floor of your palace and spend the night right here with your guards instead of going to my house.'
And now I felt my hopes die. 'You remember that, though, don't you?' You drunken prick, I added to myself. I cannot recall ever having felt so disheartened with anyone.
'May I please have a hair of the dog that bit me?'
'Uriah, go home now,' I directed paternally, then took him by the shoulder, affecting, with great strain, to appear to him as benevolent a despot as ever existed on God's earth. 'There is plenty of wine at your house that I sent to you yesterday. So go down to thy house, go right now, this minute, and wash thy feet. They are dirty again. Look at them. It's been a long campaign, for the two of us. Indulge yourself, with my permission. Yes, you have my permission. The things I've sent for your pleasure--the victuals, the mess of meat--all will spoil if you don't enjoy them today.' He was obdurate to my entreaties and stood there motionless, as stolid as a wooden post. 'Your wife is comely, they tell me, comely,' I began on a different approach, 'and awaits you passionately at home in a revealing tunic with a very short miniskirt that hangs inches and inches above her sexy knees. She sent to inquire about you while you slept, many times she sent to inquire about you. Amorously, they tell me, amorously, she awaits you, oh so amorously. Don't you like her?'
'I love my wife.'
'Then go home and fuck her.'
You lousy, thickheaded, stubborn son of a bitch, I ran on to myself. Why are you putting me through all this?
'Not on your life,' he declared loudly and proudly, his chest thrown out like a man consecrated to the glory of a life of deprivation and honor. 'Not while Israel and Judah abide in tents and are encamped in the open fields of Ammon. I am leaving at once to rejoin them.'
Like hell you are! You're doing no such thing! 'No, my good and faithful Uriah,' is how I did reply. 'You can't go back now. I have dispatches to return with you that will not be completed until tomorrow. You must stay another day. And another night. Consider yourself on furlough. Your comrades-in-arms would expect you to relax, and to pleasure yourself with your wife while you have the opportunity. Don't let them down. They will be rooting for you. How will you face them if you do not? You will shame them if you do not perform the work of a virile man with so charming a woman as I hear your wife is. They tell me she is pretty, they tell me she is vibrant, they say she looks passionate. Ooh, oooooh, ooooooh, you bastard! So go home, Uriah, go home right now, run! Do as I tell you. Go home to your wife now. And to her ring-dang-doo.'
'I will be unclean if I lie with her.'
'So you'll be unclean.'
'I would not be able to go back into battle for three more days.'
'Why not? You're a gentile, you're not even Jewish,' I reminded him harshly.
'Some of my best friends are Jewish.'
'Go home and fuck your wife!' I shouted.
'As thou livest,' he vowed adamantly, shaking his head, 'and as thy soul liveth--'
'I will absolve you,' I promised, regaining control of my temper and beaming at him. You rotten bastard, I swore at him to myself. 'I will allow you back into battle right away.' You dirty son of a bitch. 'So please go home.' I moved closer to him with a knowing wink and continued directly into his ear. 'Oh, I can just picture the wife that lies there awaiting you expectantly, sighing and breathing in sweet anticipation of the love she desires to give you after so long an absence from her felicity. Oh, Uriah, Uriah, how I envy you, how I wish I were in your shoes,' I cajoled him truthfully. No hissing serpent ever whispered temptations more subtly, no Iago ever labored more sinisterly. 'I bet her lips are like a thread of scarlet. I can just picture her. Her belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies. The joints of her thighs are like the work of the hands of a cunning workman, and her breasts like to clusters of grapes on the vine. She is fair, your love, behold, she is fair. I bet there is no spot on her.' I knew there were plenty. 'Her eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. Her teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn. Make haste, Uriah, make haste, for thy beloved will be to thee like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.'
'Can I have another hair of the dog that bit me?'
That took the wind out of my sails. I handed him the bottle. I was giving up, although I went on trying with him all day. It was no lark. I even did eat with him and drink with him, repeating, 'Uriah, go home,' with every mouthful--his company was as wearisome as Solomon's--and when all words proved to no avail, I even did make him drunk again. 'Uriah, go home,' I importuned the unyielding blockhead until I was hoarse from the effort and sick from repeating, 'Uriah, Uriah, go home and fuck your wife.' But when evening came, he parted from me unchanged, to make his bed in my palace again with the servants of the guard, and went not down to his house. And I sat drinking, glumly, until all of the wine in my chamber was finished.
What else could I do with Uriah but what I did do? Wasn't it better for the unity of the nation to cover up this government scandal if I could? Who could blame me for wishing to try? God could blame me, as it turned out, if Nathan was telling me the truth. Nathan dreams about everything all of the time, therefore has to be right about some things some of the time. Nathan is the only person I know of who dreams of God. The rest of us have more pressing matters weighing on us when we sleep.
I don't know whose idea it was to send Uriah back to the wars in Ammon to be destroyed. Let us call it the work of the Devil, although Nathan was not impressed with that defense when he brought me the bad news of the disasters to come. But I was the one who returned Uriah with the letter to Joab, saying, 'Set ye Uriah the Hittite in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten and die.' Joab complied by assigning Uriah unto a place where valiant men were fighting, where there fell some of the people of my servants, and Uriah the Hittite died also.
So Uriah the Hittite was another in the long history of warfare who laid down his life patriotically for his king and his country.
And as soon as the mourning was past, his fertile widow became my wife and moved into my palace, appropriating for herself the largest set of rooms in the women's quarter, knocking down walls to double their size, and requisitioning a custom-made bathtub immediately upon learning that I recently had acquired alabaster stones in great quantity.
My troubles were over.
They had only just begun.
For this thing that I had done displeased the Lord, and I can't say that I blame Him, although I will never excuse Him for killing the baby in retribution. That was an act of God that was warped and inhuman.
I have given up as hopeless trying to keep track of all of the laws I had violated in this single experience with Bathsheba and her late husband. There were a few in Leviticus I'd broken that I hoped neither Nathan nor God knew I'd violated, and more than once, I'm afraid, in the inconceivable rapture I enjoyed with Bathsheba, I had taken the Lord's name in vain. Boy, did we have laws--laws governing everything. Before I gave up, I counted six hundred and thirteen commandments, which I found a rather remarkably large number for a society with a language that had no written vowels and a total vocabulary of only eighty
-eight words, of which seventeen can be defined as synonyms for God.
I was skeptical but not altogether surprised when Nathan showed up to denounce me for having incited the Lord's displeasure and to acquaint me with the schedule of punishments in store. I had disappointed Him bitterly. It was nothing to the way God shortly was going to disappoint me.
'How did He find out?' I wanted to know.
'He has His ways.'
'He didn't know where Abel was after Cain killed him, or where Adam hid after they ate the apple.'
'Those were trick questions.'
'In what language,' I asked, 'did God address you?' This was a trick question of my own.
'In Yiddish of course,' said Nathan. 'In what other language would a Jewish God speak?'
Had Nathan said Latin, I would have known he was fabricating. He began with that parable--is it any wonder I detest them?--about the poor owner of a single ewe lamb that is taken away by the rich owner of a large herd to make a lavish meal for a traveler come to visit. And when I delivered the predictable verdict against the man with plenty, Nathan gleefully pounced:
'Thou art the man!'
'What will it be?' I asked fatalistically. 'Breach for breach, I guess. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth?'
'Loosely,' said Nathan. 'He will let the punishment fit the crime.'
'Can't He turn the other cheek?'
'You're making me laugh.' Like my son Solomon, with whom he now is united in an improbable alliance, Nathan has always been impervious to the ironic wit in my more elliptical sallies. 'Hast thou not despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in His sight?' he went on with a shake of his head, speaking in a hortatory and didactic way, and pronouncing his words as though he'd been educated at Oxford. 'Thou hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house. This saith the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.'
I did not dream he was talking of Absalom, and would not have believed it if I'd been told that he was. To shorten the discourse, I made admission of sin.
'But don't worry, don't worry,' Nathan made haste to comfort me. 'Nothing will happen to you. The Lord also hath put away thy sin.'
That was a comfort. I would survive. But my blood turned to ice when he said that the son Bathsheba was going to bear me would surely die.
Now where in God's world was the justice in that? He could not have pained me more had He struck me down dead. To avenge the guilty with the life of an innocent? I would not allow myself to truly believe it until I saw it begin to happen.
'Is it well with the child?' I asked when Bathsheba was delivered of him.
'It is well with the child,' was the knowledge they gave me.
'Is it well with the child?' I asked each morn and each even.
Until that day shortly came when it was no longer well, and the child was very sick. As water to a thirsty soul, I wanted mercy for the infant boy. 'Let me not see the death of the child,' I therefore besought God in those plaintive words of Hagar. I could not bear to be guilty witness, so I fasted and went into a room, and I lay all night upon the earth. And the elders of my house arose and came to me, to raise me up from the earth, but I would not let them, neither did I eat bread with them, or eat anything with anyone when they came to succor me. My sighs were many and my heart was faint. For seven days I lay all night upon the earth and besought God for the life of the child, knowing in my heart that my prayers were hopeless and that I was losing both my baby and my God with each moment that passed. And on the seventh day the child died.
I had a hunch before they told me. I could guess from the flurries of lowered voices I heard outside my room. My servants feared to tell me, afraid of the fatal effect the information might have upon me. They had seen how I mourned while the child yet lived. I lay on the earth a few minutes longer, weeping in silence into the dirt, then surrendered all hope and began pulling myself together. To make things easier for all of us, I put a brave face on the matter.
'Is the child dead?' I inquired bluntly.
And my servants, relieved of the burden of bringing me such news, said. 'He is dead.'
When the vigil was ended and the child had died, I washed alone and changed from soiled clothes to clean, and then, to the astonishment of my servants, I said I was hungry and asked to have prepared for me a filling meal that was fit for a king.
I was angry at God and angry at man. I could not make sense of the quiet in the universe. I wanted the entire world to be heartbroken, to be choked with sorrow and outrage at so heartless an event. In helpless wrath, I longed to shake my fists on the highest mountain and shriek, 'Howl, howl, ye shepherds, and cry!' How could any sentient being of conscience go about unaffected as though nothing so monstrous and universally perfidious as the death of my child had not just taken place. 'Oh, ye are men of stone!'
For the violent death of Absalom later, I knew I would have to mourn by myself. I was not incensed; there justice had to be done. But this was a newborn child. Rachel weeping for her children was as apathy itself compared to the misery I suffered at the death of these two of mine, for Rachel weeping for her children was but a figure of speech.
I said not a word of these feelings while I arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed myself, and changed my apparel, and came out of the room and went into the house of the Lord, and worshipped. You can guess how reverent and forgiving I really was in my heart.
The behavior I displayed has now become the substance of legend. I went back into my own house, and my people set bread before me, and meat, and the fruits of the field, and I ate ravenously. By then I really was famished. The silence surrounding me was stupefying. My pliant servants stared as though struck dumb, alarmed and astounded by the fearful peculiarity of my rugged character and by my resilient recovery and appetite. I had fasted a day at Abner's death. I was dining at my baby's. At last, one finally found the nerve to inquire, saying, 'What thing is this that thou hast done? Thou didst fast and weep for the child whilst it was alive. But when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread.'
Until I explained, they thought I was possessed. I answered softly. I did not want to break down in their sight.
'While the child was yet alive,' I said, and managed to keep my voice steady, 'I fasted and wept, for I said, "Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?" But now that he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? All go into one place, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. He'll come no more, never, never, never. I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.'
'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,' Nathan intoned unctuously, and I wanted to sock him in the eye.
'Amen,' chorused his acolytes. 'Blessed be the name of the Lord.'
I cursed the lot of them under my breath. Miserable comforters were they all, with their self-righteous 'blessed be the name of the Lord's,' and I wanted the day to perish wherein they were born. Had they all forgotten that the Lord would not even let us know His name?
In solitude, I was raging at the Lord, seething with scornful belligerence toward the Lord, and spoiling for a fight with Him. I really could not keep my temper. I wanted to have it out with Him. I was ready to curse God and die. But He would not take me on. I never did get from Him the justification I wanted for the death of the child. I received instead the answer I least expected.
Silence.
It is the only answer I have got from Him since.
I would have welcomed His roar. I wanted to hear Him thunder majestically at me out of the whirlwind, I hung
ered to let me see Him react, I challenged and goaded Him to let me hear, instead of that vast and impenetrable silence, His all-powerful voice command me from on high:
'Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man.'
I'd just love to hear Him try that kind of shit with me. I would not answer with the patience of Job.
'Who do you have to be? ' I would snarl at Him in reply.
I dare Him to answer, 'I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto Me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.'
'What difference does that make?' I can hear myself replying in disparagement of His irrelevance.
Then let Him answer me out of the whirlwind and say, 'Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest, or who hath stretched the line upon it? Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days? Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow, or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail? Out of whose womb came the ice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south, or the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook, or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Who created the heaven and the earth? Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder to cause it to rain on the earth? Answer thou Me, if thou has understanding.'
'But that doesn't matter anymore,' I would contend with my Almighty God and instruct Him in biting reply. 'Can't You see? That no longer matters at all.'
I got further with Bathsheba than I was able to get with God. Bathsheba and I said hardly anything, anything at all, in the tender meeting we had following the death of the child, and those few words we did exchange were half-heard murmurs and fell like wistful eulogies between our long and heartfelt silences. I went to her room when our baby was dead, to comfort her as she lay in her bed, and I held her hand while she lay in her bed, and she cried quietly for more than an hour. Her tears flowed slowly.